The Pentagon is concerned that Russia 'actively' considers nuclear weapons use

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a session at the Week of Russian Business, organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), in Moscow, Russia February 9, 2018.REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

The Trump administration's new nuclear policy aims to
counter an evolving Russian military.

The administration's Nuclear Posture Review calls for
the development of new low-yield
nuclear weapons.

"Russian nuclear doctrine seems to actively consider
the possibility of limited nuclear use," the deputy
undersecretary of defense for policy said on Monday.

The Trump administration's new nuclear policy aims to counter an
evolving Russian military strategy that appears to more readily
envisage the limited use of nuclear weapons, a senior defense
official said Monday.

"We have been extremely concerned with what we have seen as the
evolution of Russian military policy as it relates to potential
use of nuclear weapons," David Trachtenberg, the deputy
undersecretary of defense for policy, said at the Heritage
Foundation on Monday.

"Russian nuclear doctrine seems to actively consider the
possibility of limited nuclear use. Russian military exercises …
in some cases have involved levels of activity involving
strategic nuclear forces that we haven't seen since the heyday of
the Cold War, and some of those exercises have involved the
simulated use of nuclear weapons as part of what has been
referred to as an 'escalate to deescalate strategy.'"

The Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review, released
earlier this month, calls for the development of
new low-yield nuclear weapons, including a nuclear-armed
sea-launched cruise missile and a submarine-launched ballistic
missile.

Critics of the document have complained the
procurement of such weapons would not neutralize Russian
investment in low-yield nukes as intended, but would instead
provide President Donald Trump with a "more usable" nuclear
arsenal.

Trachtenberg disputed reports suggesting the new strategy
enhances the prospect
of nuclear war or represents a revival of a Cold
War-era arms race. He said the policy
lays out a path for the United States to contest Russian
advances, in turn enhancing American deterrence capabilities.

"The goal of our recommendations is to deter war, not to fight
one," he said. "If nuclear weapons are employed in conflict, it
is because deterrence failed, and the goal of the 2018 [Nuclear
Posture Review] is to make sure that deterrence will not fail."

"Our purpose now is to disabuse any thinking on the part of-not
just the Russian leadership, but any potential adversary's
leadership-to disabuse them of the notion that there is some
level of conflict or some level of escalation that they feel they
can engage in where they are not at risk of … a commensurate
response."

Citing the Obama administration's 2010 Nuclear Posture Review,
which sought to shrink the U.S. nuclear arsenal with the aim of
reciprocity, Trachtenberg said the Pentagon's updated
recommendations "are grounded in a realistic assessment of
today's strategic environment" in which China, Russia, and North
Korea continue efforts to build-up their nuclear capacities.